Letters: Endorsement rebuttals

LETTERS

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, October 23, 2008

Irked by earmarks

I am very disappointed and shocked by your endorsement of Nick Lampson for U.S. Congress. (Please see "U.S. House District 22," Editorial, Oct. 15.) If the Chronicle's editorial board likes Lampson for other reasons, that is fine, but endorsing him because he brings home pork is hogwash! This is exactly why the federal government has put us all in such debt.

How wonderful that he spent my money on flood control improvements in Fort Bend and Harris counties. Why on earth should I, and everyone else in this country, pay for flood control in his district? He has literally stolen from me and the rest of us. To make it worse, he stole from me by supporting other projects in other parts of the country. I wonder how many other backs he scratched to get his projects approved?

Embarrassing act

In September, the Chronicle ran an editorial regarding the series of ethics questions bedeviling Harris County elected officials. (Please see "Under a cloud / FBI probe of commissioner yet another indication of ethics crisis in Harris County government," Sept. 6.) The editorial stated that "the latest developments all but guarantee that good government issues will dominate hard-fought contests" for local county officials in November. The editorial also stated that "it would be refreshing if rather than just talking ethics at election time, the winners would back meaningful reforms once they take office."

In light of this editorial, I find it baffling that the Chronicle would endorse John Davis for the Texas House. (Please see "Texas Senate and House," Editorial, Oct. 11.) Although he is not a Harris County elected official, he is an official from Harris County who has been elected. He has misused his donors' money, which resulted in a $1,000 fine by the Texas Ethics Commission.

The citizens of his district are tired of this unethical behavior. He has embarrassed our district, and the Chronicle should be embarrassed by this endorsement, because Davis does not deserve to return to Austin.

The disservice

I am aghast that the Chronicle recommended disgraced incumbent Hubert Vo for Texas House District 149 over Greg Meyers, a respected businessman and HISD Board trustee. (Please see "Texas Senate and House," Editorial, Oct. 14.) What was the editorial board thinking? It gave Vo credit for performing city-mandated repairs to his rundown apartment complexes? That's like giving a tax evader credit for paying his taxes! And remember, Vo's repairs weren't made until the Chronicle made his inactions known, thereby embarrassing him and risking his political future.

Greg Meyers, on the other hand, has consistently acted honorably on behalf of the Houston taxpayers and the men, women and children of the Houston Independent School District. He is a respected businessman — so respected among his peers that he was elected chairman of the Houston West Chamber of Commerce. The Chronicle really insulted its readers' intelligence by recommending Vo and did a disservice to undecided voters.

Calling on anger over death row

Regarding Wednesday's Page One article "Whitmire: Jam phone signals in prisons / Senator blasts officials, calls for crackdown on contraband after death row sting": I can certainly understand Sen.
John Whitmire
's outrage over death row prisoners getting cell phones. However, I would like to hear some similar outrage by our politicians over the barbaric isolation of death row prisoners and the horrific use of the death penalty in this state.

We have had more than 400 executions since 1982, which is four times as many as any other state in the nation. And we have 12 executions scheduled in October and November. Most states in the nation don't have 12 executions in five years! Texas is viewed as a huge violator of human rights by the rest of the world. How about some outrage over that!

The price tag on Palin's polish

According to campaign finance disclosure forms, the
Republican National Committee
has spent $125,000 at Saks and Neiman Marcus on clothes for
Sarah Palin
, and $5,000 on hair and makeup. I guess
Wal-Mart
is no longer good enough for the "hockey mom" who likes to brag she's just like the rest of us. I guess it's important that Palin look as polished as possible when she's accusing
Barack Obama
of being an elitist liberal who's out of touch with Joe the Plumber.

In response to Saturday's Outlook article "Seniors feeling the stress of competition for college / Many applicants, few slots for elite tier of universities": Unfortunately,
Meredith Baker
's opinion essay on college admissions reflects the concerns of many high school students. As a college guidance counselor at a private, college-preparatory school and in the midst of the application-season frenzy, I see this angst daily. One of the most frustrating elements of college admissions today is that the definition of "good school" has been sorely perverted with the advent of college rankings.

Every student who graduates from high school with college preparatory course work can get into a "good school." Good schools are not limited to the 50 schools mentioned on the first page of the U.S. News and World Report's "College Ranking of National Universities." This short list eclipses the thousands of schools providing great educations and most of whom have very high acceptance rates. If journalism is your interest, why not look at good schools with higher acceptance rates that have graduated noted journalists, such as the University of Missouri (Brian Smith), Texas Christian University (Bob Schieffer), Sam Houston State (Dan Rather), Stephens (Paula Zahn ) or University of Maryland (Heidi Collins)? Many great schools are overlooked every year by the hype that surrounds a few.

Just as Sports Illustrated panders to prurient interests with its best-selling swimsuit issue, U.S. News' "Best Colleges" issue preys upon the fears and insecurities of parents and students to produce their best-selling issue. U.S. News is not performing a public service; it is a commercial enterprise aimed at making a profit, and the fallout is not its concern. The consequence of these rankings over the past 20 years has been a fabricated, but real, spiraling anxiety.

Parents, teachers and friends need to reinforce for students that just as we should not measure ourselves by the prestige of our job, size of our home or make of our car, students should not measure their self-worth by the colleges to which they may or may not gain admis-sion. Meredith Baker will be successful in her career because she has the ambition and drive to take advantage of the opportunities afforded her, not because of the college she will attend.